Fine Fine Fine
Chapter 1
ONE
When Hanna Stevens found herself with time to kill, she preferred to drown it in whiskey.
She checked the time on her phone as she caught the bartender’s eye. He reached for the bottle of Maker’s she’d put an impressive dent in and tipped it over once more.
She still had forty-three minutes to talk herself into attending her best friend’s engagement party, despite the unfortunate guest list.
The bartender poured another two fingers’ worth of whiskey over ice and slid it across the bar—the ancient wood as chipped as her outdated manicure—and she took a long, slow drag of it. The room swirled as the aged spirit pooled on her tongue and burned the whole way down.
Probably. She’d stopped feeling the sizzle at that point.
Hanna could have arrived at the Rodriguez house early and, in all honesty, probably should have.
She'd accepted the sacred Maid of Honor role six months before and, thanks to her long-distance friendship, had skirted many of the obligatory duties.
It was time she paid her dues in the form of fluffing rented linens and arranging grocery store flowers in thrifted glassware.
Instead, she’d cruised by the classically beige suburban home twice before deciding it was safer for her to let the rest of the attendees trickle in and take up space before she had to face anyone.
Sara had been perfectly understanding, of course.
Not that she had any choice.
Hanna found that the only—only—benefit of her mother’s death the previous summer was the wide berth it earned her in social scenarios. Whether it was because they were kind and understood the special hell she was in, or because they simply couldn’t think of something to say, she wasn’t sure.
And it didn’t really matter.
What did matter was that she maintained just enough of a buzz to convince everyone at the party she was totally fine without it feeling overly contrived. A task that would have been easier if the groom didn’t share DNA with the former love of her life—and current nightmare ex—Logan.
She checked her phone once more and restlessly tapped her teeth, idly scrolling through Instagram.
Nope, still not blacked out, she thought as she sipped her glass.
The whiskey in her throat had burned away some of the anxiety, at least enough to convince her she could handle seeing Logan.
Hanna loved a whiskey buzz. Smooth, cozy, just witty enough to earn a laugh from the room but not enough to show her ass.
Tequila drunk, and she’d cry to the bartender about that bitch Logan had left her for.
Gin made her vomit.
Vodka… oof. Vodka turned her into a five-foot-nine woman scorned, looking for any and everything to incinerate.
No one liked Vodka Hanna.
But Whiskey Hanna? Whiskey Hanna was safe. Whiskey Hanna curled up in armchairs, reminiscing about the good old days she wasn’t sure she’d ever even had. Whiskey Hanna hardly even remembered the way the funeral director smelled of cheap aftershave and Marlboros.
She set the glass back on the bar, twiddling at the rim absentmindedly and debating how much further she could push her buzz.
She didn’t want to be the problem child at the party. She already knew she was in for a night of pained tongue-clicks that preceded asinine questions like, “How are you?” and “You hanging in there?”
And she was, beneath the anxiety, very excited to see her best friend, which was almost enough to override the dread tightening her spine. Sara had fled Phoenix for Silicon Valley the moment they graduated from college, and they’d survived on FaceTime and long weekends for the decade since.
It wasn’t enough, but as ready as she was to see Sara, she just couldn’t fathom sitting in a house full of people who knew her innermost pain while they attempted small talk—
“Hey, sorry, but are you Hanna?”
The low voice crawled over her shoulders and slid onto the stool beside her as his question hung in the air.
Even sitting, she knew he was tall by the way his shoulders hunched to speak into her ear.
He was wrapped in a dark pair of jeans and a button-down with sleeves shoved up over his elbows, revealing a canvas full of inky-black tattoos.
Wait a minute, she thought. She knew those tattoos.
Hanna cleared the whiskey simmering in her throat and turned to face him, tentatively asking, “Milo?”
“Okay, cool,” he returned. “I thought that was you, but I was afraid to creep on a stranger.”
He laughed and set his own half-drained glass next to hers as she wondered how long he’d been perched in the corner of the dive.
Hanna took a slow breath, the pleasant buzz she’d curated suddenly harder to think through.
She’d seen him in the occasional Instagram post over the years, lingering at the edges of Warriors games and movie nights.
He was a childhood friend of Sara's fiancé, Matty, and the two had reunited when they both moved back up to the bay.
If Sara's reports were reliable, he was as chronically single as he was devastatingly charming.
And Sara’s reports were always reliable.
Milo’s lips tilted into a lethal grin as Hanna stared for a moment too long.
Some kind of government entity should regulate that jawline, she thought. It cannot be legal to wield something that sharp in public.
“Sara said you’d be at the closest, grossest bar, and lo and behold.”
Hanna flinched. “I bet she did.” She watched as he sized her up with rich hazel-green eyes, his gaze bouncing between her and the final whispers of amber whiskey in her glass.
“Bourbon or scotch girl?”
She shrugged. “Right now? Or stranded on a desert island, and I can only bring one?”
He gestured to the glass. “Right now.”
“Bourbon. Maker’s. Keeping it simple, but I’ve actually been into Japanese whiskeys lately.”
She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to tell him that, but then again, she was three, maybe four whiskeys in before dinner, so it was harmless, considering.
Something in his eyes lit up.
“Hibiki?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she mumbled, feeling a little less mysterious than she’d aimed for.
Hanna angled herself, keen to see more of his face, her legs swinging over one another in what she hoped was effortlessly casual and not a prelude to slipping off the stool.
“They’re having a moment right now. All the rage in the city,” he said.
“As much as I love small talk, I gotta ask. Why are you hiding here? Sara’s mom get handsy and run you off?
” Hanna looked around, her eyes landing on no fewer than seven geriatric men glued to sticky tables as they watched the singular television mounted in the corner. “Not exactly a hip destination.”
She wouldn’t have blamed him. Cami could be a lot for anyone, but especially a young, handsome man when she was three buttery chards to the wind.
Milo sighed. “I’m not supposed to say.”
Jesus, the dimples.
Hanna hung her head forward. Of course, he was the designated groomsman sent to find her.
“Sara sent you.”
“She did.”
“She knew I’d be too early,” Hanna mumbled.
“She did. And she wanted to make sure you had a ride.” Milo pointed to her glass again, the gesture landing like an accusation.
“Thoughtful.” She clicked her tongue.
Sara was never one for subtleties. From the moment Logan broke up with her, to the moment her mother died (granted, there weren’t many moments between the two), Sara had pestered her relentlessly about coming out to drown her sorrows in Milo’s dimples.
She’d gracefully given up on that after… well, everything.
Even if Hanna had been interested in something romantic with Milo, she had three very well-rehearsed reasons why she would rather throw herself into the Grand Canyon.
1. He lived in San Francisco.
This didn’t require much thought—long distance was an absolute nonstarter, given how her long-term relationship with Logan imploded within weeks of him moving cross-country for work.
She wasn’t doing that bullshit again.
Ever.
2. He was just, like, too hot.
Hanna was a woman of the early aughts and, as such, she’d worked for years to accept her body and love herself. But even with thousands of dollars invested in therapy, there was a line in her ambition.
Milo took that line, made sweet, sweet love to it, and never called it again.
Seeing him in person only reaffirmed her initial distrust of those dimples.
He was massive, not in a yoked-gym-bro way, but in a Thor-was-probably-the-first-branch-of-his-family-tree way.
His dark hair was long enough that she had to consciously make an effort not to reach out and touch a curl hanging at his jaw.
The deep bronze set off his olive tan, perfectly complemented by earthy eyes that she was certain were capable of X-ray vision.
The kicker?
Just enough tattoos to push him firmly into Bad Boy? territory, but a stable enough tech job and somewhat decent moral compass—again, if the rumors were to be believed—that barred him from full-blown mischief membership.
3. He knew too much.
There was one last reason—just a small one.
When her mom died after a rollercoaster diagnosis of late-stage cancer that no one saw coming, Hanna called Sara from the hospital parking lot.
It was Wednesday, movie and wings night.
Milo answered as Sara argued with Matty in the background.
He’d caught the brunt of Hanna’s shock and grief-fueled hysteria, and she simply refused to ever get to know him well enough to talk about it.
Every time she glanced at his unreasonably handsome face, she whooshed through the last year and found herself back in that parking lot, baking in the Phoenix sun as she screamed into the phone.
The devastation welled up in her chest again just at the sight of him—she couldn’t invite any more suffering into her life.
She was maxed out on pain.
“Listen, if you don’t think you can handle being in a confined space with me… you can always call an Uber.” He smirked and a surprise fourth reason bubbled up.
4. Milo was entirely too aware of the aforementioned number two.